The Star Splitter
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: The man in black comes to Stalingrad in early January of 1943 and gives rather minimal explanation as to his purpose or the nature of war in the first place. He is late and it is time to go home. Side fic to the AU October.


**Author's Note: For those of you about to read this fic this is a side fic to the AU October and if you read this without first at least reading part of that fic you may recognize the setting but have no idea what this has with Harry Potter or magic in general. I highly suggest you read the original fic before reading this one if you are so inclined.**

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When he would speak of that day later to his children all he would say was that the gunfire had stopped and that for that first moment he thought he had gone deaf. They were not shooting all the time, it was true, but the city was more a ruined battlefield than a place of people now. At that point there was no clear distinction between places to kill and places to sleep, the snipers lived in the rubble and the dirt their eye always trained on the foot soldiers restocking the water and food. In the remains of kitchens, the streets, alleyways, sewers, every place imaginable somewhere in that city there would be the sound of gun fire.

The truth of the matter remained though, in the words of the man in black, "I came late to Stalingrad."

Sergei had been young then but he had seemed old. With old gun and the bitter cold of winter it had felt as if that battle had raged on forever. The Germans were starving in January though, and though they were standing their ground bitterly they could not last on food supplied from the Luftwaffe forever.

They would not have had victory that day in early January but it would have come soon, as it was though the man in black arrived before they could push the Germans out, and then the guns stopped working altogether.

Stalingrad was one of the first cities he visited, or so he claimed, certainly the rumors spread much later as he made his way at an alarming pace through Europe. Before he saw the man in Stalingrad he hadn't even known he existed.

The way he remembered it was a young man, hardly older than a boy, dressed in black stood in the center of the city with green eyes that seemed to cut through everything, "The battle is over, it's time to go home."

There had been many jammed shots fired at him, but disabling the guns, somehow without touching them at all had been one of the first things he had accomplished. The other weapons were in similar disrepair until they had been left only their fists and the rubble beneath their feet.

The high command eventually decided to meet with him, each looking at their enemy warily and at the man in black with even more suspicion, from what Sergei later heard the man did not give much of a satisfactory response, "It was like watching a poorly written soap opera called life and being told that I could rewrite a senseless scene here or there if I so chose. In the end I couldn't help myself."

He told them, both armies, to head elsewhere and that the war would soon be over. Go home, is what he'd say whenever some new brass would ask him what they were meant to do with their lives.

He would not until the next day and Sergei managed to meet him face to face. As he discovered later this was rare, there were not many who had a conversation with the man in black, there were stories from the German labor camps of brief kind words exchanged and the feeling of hope but from the rumors he rarely stayed in one place for too long.

Sergei had been sitting where he had always been sitting, told by higher command that it was not over yet, because how could it simply be done without conclusion. The man had a lightness to his walk, so that it seemed like he was floating among the charred bricks and broken streets, and it was with that same grace that he stopped in front of Sergei with an odd smile.

"I am sorry that I did not come sooner but then there is a fine line between free will and abomination and I had to be clear that I accepted the consequences of my actions." He said, Sergei blinked up at him rubbing his eyes and wondering if he was having some bizarre dream.

The young man looked as if he had walked out of a tale rather than reality, the pale features, those green eyes the color of empty wine bottles, and his black hair in curly disarray he seemed as if he was some other creature given human form. Dressed in black clothing that Sergei couldn't recognize he felt as if this man was foreign, more foreign than Germany or England or anywhere else he had heard of.

"Pardon?" Sergei asked the man, the man smiled and sat down across from him.

"This has happened, it is written, and I doubt I will rewrite it again. However Dresden will not be riddled, there will be no invasion of Normandy, Germany will not be torn in half and sold to the highest bidder, and that is enough or almost enough I should think." He sighed looking past Sergei and into the city beyond looking resigned and yet somehow determined all in the same moment.

"You're really ending the war then?" He didn't know why he asked it, even then, but the words came out of his mouth and the man had smiled at them.

"Of course, I couldn't come all this way for nothing. It will end, probably not today, not tomorrow, but very soon I will see to it that this war ends."

For a moment they sat in silence, staring at each other, then with a smile that was almost tender the man said, "You know, I was almost surprised I came to Stalingrad so quickly, I would have thought Dachau or Auschwitz would draw me faster but there is something about the battlefield, something about the corpses lining the streets and that siege that never seems to end that reminds me of my own history. I think that I had to come here first." He looked up then perhaps noting Sergei's very lost expression because then with a wave of his hand and a much more focused expression he said, "I'm told quite frequently by a good friend that I talk like an extraordinarily bad poet."

The idea of the man in black having a good friend was more than a little alarming, there had been speculation among them that he was some sort of rogue and forgotten god, but the words never the less were a rather good description of the way he talked. The entire experience was one that someone might have in a dream, not in reality, and in those cases it was best to play along.

"Are you heading there next, then, Dachau and…?"

"Oh yes, it was my intention to find myself there all along." He said with a darker expression not clarifying where these places were or why they were so vital to find. "It seems I will be late to a good many places for a while, still better late than not at all."

He stood then and the talk appeared to be mostly over, the man shook his hand and distantly wished him the best of luck in rebuilding the city or else heading towards Moscow. He started to walk back the way he came, hands in his pocket with the folds of his cloak fluttering through the wind behind him like wings.

"What are we supposed to do now?"

The man turned back to look at him with those inhuman eyes that simply could not understand, "War, like most things, is less necessary than people make it seem. Go home, Sergei, the war is over and it's time to go home."

True to his word by summer the war was indeed over, inexplicably stopped not only in the Soviet Union but in Germany, France, and all the other battlefields as well. Guns jammed, bombs hollowed, tanks unmoving, innovation failed them time and time again until all were forced to accept this uneasy peace without conclusion brought by a man who failed to give out his name no matter his location.

They all went home in uneasy thoughtful silence and were greeted by the relieved tears of loved ones who would say, "Thank God." And they were left there wondering if it was God they had to thank or something else entirely.

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**Author's Note: Originally I was going to write about Dachau but instead I turned back to Stalingrad, I figured with all the mentions it's been getting in the original it deserves it's own side fic. This is a fic for the 300th review of October by Gigapode whose prompt was "Something from Azrael's adventures during his time away. Possibly from a soldier's or historical figure's perspective. Something with action." It's more of implied action here and I chose the soldier angle but here we are none the less. Potsdam revised is going to occur in the original fic fairly soon anyway so historical figures aplenty there. **

**Thanks to readers and reviewers you guys are great.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**


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